Scales
by dollarbilll
Summary: For as long as I could remember, I had always wanted a dragon-type Pokemon to accompany me on my Island Challenge. But as I set off from Iki Town with a dragon of my own, I found out that dragons were called beasts for a reason. This is the story of that Island Challenge.
1. Tipped in My Favor

I heard the door creak open behind me while I was stuffing food into my bag. "No way," said a familiar voice in excited disbelief. I whipped my head around to see my old friend staring at my bag with wide eyes. I quickly kicked my backpack underneath my bed. "Oh, don't try that garbage!"

"Nice to see you too," I joked. It had been a few months since I last saw my Malia. "And don't try what?" I said, trying to play it off. She caught sight of my neutral face and raised an eyebrow at me. One of her signature "oh really?" glances was enough for my serious demeanor to crumble into a toothy grin. "I, uh, I heard about a bagon nest last night, and I was just trying to see if-"

"You were going to try to catch one, I know." She rolled her eyes. "Some things never change, do they?"

"Come on! Dragons are cool!"

"They're dangerous, especially for a newbie trainer like you."

"I'm not a newbie!"

"Just because you're older than the other beginning trainers doesn't mean you're not a beginning trainer yourself." Malia folded her arms. I took it as a hint that the debate was over. In defeat, I fell back onto my bed. She broke the silence after a vacant moment. "You wouldn't be a newbie if you had just accepted the starter that Hala gave you."

I lifted my head up from the covers and glared daggers at my friend. "I told him I wanted a dragon-type. He got me a poliwag."

"And you should have expected that! Don't you remember all the times he said that ''the dragons native to Alola are far too dangerous for a young trainer to handle?'" she said, mimicking Hala's deep, booming voice.

"Yeah but-" I shook my head dismissively and grabbed my backpack from the floor. "Don't you have some trial to be doing or something?'

"No Kal, today's the starter ceremony, remember? My little brother is getting his first pokemon." I vaguely remembered her saying something like that over the phone a few days ago.

"Great. Another year watching little kids get the pokemon they wanted. Can't wait." I flung my bag over my shoulder and threw open the front door. "See you later tonight."

"Seven o'clock, Kal! Seven!" I was already too far into the streets of Iki Town to give her an audible response. I headed to the southern exit of the town, as the bagon nest was allegedly located in, er, on Ten Carat Hill. Specifically on its highest ridge.

But as I soon figured out, Ten Carat Hill was not my friend. My entire day was spent getting blisters on my hands and scraping every inch of my body trying to scale the darn hill. Whenever I needed a handhold, it seemed like the cliff would purposely dislodge the rocks that I would grapple onto. I couldn't even take two steps on its highest ridge or even get a decent look at the nest before I heard the chanting in the distance. I had taken too long. The ceremony was starting.

The steep gradient combined with the loose soil of the crag threw my feet out in front of me, sending my body tumbling down into the interior. I may have been hearing things, but I could have sworn I heard it laugh. Or maybe it was the sableye in the cave. Who knows.

The only thing I did know for certain was that the chanting in the distance meant I had to get moving back to Iki Town. Fast.

I busted out of the area through the cave and made a beeline to the small ledge by the old lab. I tried to push myself over it, but my arms gave out, forcing me to pathetically roll over the bluff like a sack of potatoes.

The scent of the ceremonial smoke grew stronger, as did my sense of urgency as I sprinted up the final stretch of hill between me and Iki Town. I stopped dead in my tracks at the base of the wooden staircase that led up to the town to catch my breath. The air was hot and thick, making my next breath more and more of an effort. I glanced up from the ground and saw a familiar face. My stomach turned. "H-Hey Ma-"

"You're late." Malia held out her hand to help me up the stairs.

"H-Hey Ma-"

"Look at you! You're a mess!" I glanced down at my clothes. My shorts were ripped, there was dried blood plastered to my neck, and my backpack was… gone. Shoot.

"Well, you see-"

Malia started to giggle. "I don't really care, Kal. Go get some food or something; you look hungry."

She was right. I was hungry. Dodging the festival-goers, I made my way to the food table. I took a paper plate, and loaded myself up with all kinds of meats and breads that were made specifically for this occasion.

I felt a large hand land on my shoulder. "My oh my, Kaleo, save some for the rest of us!" My eyes traveled up until they made contact with a familiar man in a yellow robe.

"Out of all the people here, you should be worrying the least about this," I retorted with a smile, elbowing Hala's stomach.

Hala let out a fit of booming laughs that drew the eyes of many festival-goers. "I'm very glad you could make it, Kaleo. Go have some fun." He winked at me. I didn't have any time to process what that meant before he gave me a mighty pat on the back, which sent my food, and myself in turn trying to keep it all on my plate, forward towards the benches where Malia was perched.

Her eyes widened when she caught a glimpse of my mountain of food. We joked around for a while as I devoured my monstrosity of a meal, catching up on the happenings of our lives.

"Your parents were looking for you before," she started, stopping to stifle some giggles. "Your mom looked furious!" I craned my neck to see my father in the group of fire dancers and waved to him, letting him know I was here. He flashed me a smile and raised his eyebrows, which I translated as "you should see your mother." I shook my head and turned back to Malia.

"I think I'm gonna pass on letting my mom know I'm here for now." We both laughed.

Once we calmed down, she showed me Noelle, her newly evolved ninetales, and got a few ooh and aahs from the rest of the festival-goers.

"So," I started. "How long are you here for?"

Her smile melted away and she looked down at her clean plate. "Only for tonight. I have to leave for the ferry tomorrow morning to get to Malie."

"Oh, alright." If I had known, I wouldn't have spent all day away from her. "Why so early?"

"I have a scheduled battle at the Malie Gym."

"The gym!? Like, the new one?"

"Yeah, that's the one," she confirmed. Her enthusiasm was pitiful. "If I get the badge, it'll waive one of the Ula'Ula trials," she answered with a melancholy grin. "Bug-type."

"Nice. So, uh, when are you gonna visit us next?"

"I-I don't know, Kal. Ula'Ula and Poni are the most expending parts of the island challenge. Heck, it could take me a few months just to get through Vast Poni Canyon." I blinked, unsure how to respond. "But I'd really like to stay longer, I really would! But, people have been telling me that I have some great potential, and I can't just step on the brakes right now."

I nodded.

"You know, if you had a pokemon, you could join me on my island challenge. You could leave Iki Town. Have some actual fun for once," she suggested, leaning forward.

"Only if I get a dragon-"

She took in a quick breath as if she was preparing to scold me, but slowly let it out instead with a shake of her head and a grin on her face. "You're a funny breed, Kal."

Maybe I was. Who knows? But shoving the goal of my lifetime away just to start my journey without a dragon just felt… odd. All these years of waiting would be in vain.

The chanting became louder and louder, until all conversations were taken over by the fire dancers. The Iki Town residents gathered in the middle of the town square around the raised wooden platform in the center. A large figure in a yellow robe that I quickly recognized as Hala climbed the stairs with booming footsteps just as loud as his laughs. The murmurs and side conversations died out as Hala stood in front of everyone silently.

"Alola, everybody. Welcome to the Festival of Beginnings." Cheers and applause erupted from the crowd. Hala's mustache shifted, and I knew there was a huge smile hiding underneath it. "Before all of you this evening, several of our youth will be receiving their starter pokemon. These pokemon will travel aside, win aside, lose aside, and live aside Iki Town's youth as they complete their island challenge. These pokemon will become the young trainers' best allies, and best friends. May great prosperity come to those who train their pokemon with respect and love."

Hala paused and looked up at the orange sky. "Let us take a moment to thank our island guardian, Tapu Koko, for blessing us with this opportunity to partake in such a special occasion." The crowd looked towards the sky above in the same manner as Hala. I looked to my left at Malia, who rolled her eyes.

"Some things never change, huh?" I mocked, letting out a snort of laughter. Malia punched my shoulder.

Hala lowered his gaze to the crowd, surveying everyone before he continued. "Let us begin!" he bellowed with a heavy clap. The fire dancers responded out a resounding chant.

A man climbed up onto the platform and handed Hala a pokeball. The kahuna squinted at the pokeball before clearing his throat. "First off, we have Makani!" A young boy rose from the crowd and joined Hala on the platform, looking straight up at the old man with a nervous stare. "Inkay, come on out!" A flash of red came from the pokeball, and materialized into an inkay. "Makani, this is-" The squid pokemon attached itself to Makani's head, much to the crowds amusement. "Oh ho ho! Would you look at that! Inkay already likes you."

Hala returned the inkay to its pokeball and gave it to the boy, who pranced off the stage with a wide, toothy grin on his face.

Hala repeated this sequence of events, and eventually Malia's little brother was called up onto the platform.

"Last, but certainly not least, I would like to welcome Mano up onto the stage. Hala released the pokemon, and Mano's eyes stared with curiosity at the orange canine pokemon in front of him. "Mano, this is Growlithe, your starter. Do you uphold your the promise to be a virtuous trainer?"

"Y-Yes," he muttered with a nod.

"Great! Now hold your hand to him." Mano offered the back of his hand to the growlithe, who promptly licked his hand and barked in amusement. "And it looks like he accepts you too!"

I chuckled as Malia stood up and clapped for her brother. Mano's face turned a bright shade of red and he quickly ran off the platform to avoid any more attention.

Malia turned to me. "A growlithe! I can't believe it! It's perfect for him!"

"And when it's fully trained, it's going to destroy your ninetales," I pointed out.

"Oh shut up, Kal. Noelle can handle her fair share of fire-type moves."

"Whatever you say," I whispered.

"What was that?"

The crowd began to stir and funnel out of the seating area. Hala cleared his throat and lifted up a hand, and all the murmurs disappeared immediately.

"I actually have one more trainer to entrust with a pokemon." He chuckled.

I shot a confused look at Malia, but she answered with a shrug.

"This… certain trainer has made quite the name for himself in the last few years." Snorts of amusement and giggles made rounds through the confused crowd. "He is a very capable young man, and has shown a certain stubbornness even I haven't seen before; denying the starter I offered and trying to catch his own!"

My stomach lurched as I finally realized what was going on. Malia seemed to have noticed the draining of color from my face and immediately burst out into laughter.

"Kaleo, would you join me up here?" Reluctantly, I shuffled through the dense crowd and clambered up the stairs.

Hala placed his hand on my head and tousled my hair. "Would you please tell these fine folks why you refused my starter?"

"I, uh." I looked into the crowd to find some reassurance, but only found Malia wearing the dirtiest smile I'd ever seen from her. "I-I wanted a dragon-type."

"That's right, ladies and gentlemen. This young trainer wanted a dragon-type as his first pokemon. When he first told me this, I thought it was just a phase. Surely he would have given up on this by now, right?. However, he has shown a certain stubbornness that I have never, ever seen before. The kind of stubbornness that I have deemed fit to train a dragon."

Hala looked down at me, and let out his signature booming laughs when he saw the wide smile plastered to my face.

"I guess this is your lucky day, Kaleo." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. A red flash came from the pokeball he was holding and materialized into a pokemon that I had never seen before.

"This, Kaleo, is a jangmo-o. A dragon. Do you uphold your promise to be a virtuous trainer?" I nodded.

"Spit it out boy!"

"Yes! Yes I do!"

"Now hold out your hand and see what he thinks of you."

I knelt down on the wooden platform and held out my hand to the creature. It touched the large, heart-shaped scale on its head to my hand and held it there for a brief moment. My heart was pounding.

"Congratulations, Kaleo."

"Jang!" it shouted. Then it bit my hand.


	2. Facade of Strength

**There is an author's note at the end of this chapter.**

* * *

"Aww, I wish I could see more of this little guy!" Malia cooed, trying to pet my jangmo-o's crest scale. Wako (which was the name I had decided to call my partner after a long, sleepless night) followed her hand with his snout, and snapped at her fingers one they got too close.

"Wako! No!" My pokemon whipped its head at me and glared - probably using Leer on me - in defiance. "Bad dragon!"

"Jang!"

Malia giggled. "Kal, he's just a cute little baby" she said like a mother would talk to an infant. "He doesn't know the difference between right and wrong yet!" A smitten grin grew across her face, probably due to this alleged "cuteness" of my ferocious dragon.

I scoffed. "Cute? Wako is a pokemon of prey!" Wako turned to me and flaunted his crest. I supposed the large, heart-shaped scale on his forehead didn't help my case.

The ferry's fog horn sounded, signaling that it was leaving the marina soon. Malia jumped and swung her bag across a shoulder. "Oh! There's my cue."

I returned Wako to his pokeball. "Yeah, so…" I shrugged. "See you whenever, I guess."

Malia mirrored my chagrin, but shook her head and flashed me a smile. "Oh, don't worry. It won't be too long." But as she turned and climbed up the steps to the ferry, I couldn't help but feel that it would be a while until I saw her again.

* * *

I was kicked out of house soon after. It was a moment that my parents had waited years for, which was made all too obvious by the dumb smile on my mother's face.

The first thing that I immediately realized was that even through the years of obsession with dragons, I had neglected to do _any_ research or preparation on training. So naturally, I learned a lot in the first few weeks.

My lack of preparation was noticeable, even on my first day. As the sun began to set, I rummaged through my backpack trying to find my sleeping bag, but as my searching became more frantic, it dawned on me that I didn't have one. I managed to construct a makeshift sleeping pad from some palm leaves and set up camp around that. Calling it a camp was probably giving it too much justice; I didn't even have a fire.

For heat, I decided that Wako and I would huddle together on the ground, but soon became apparent that I was very, very, wrong. Every time I would try to hold him near me, he would aggressively squirm out of my grasp and sprawl out on top of me and nod off. For only being a couple feet tall, his weight was enough to knock the air out of me.

I kept Wako out of his pokeball most of the time. I insisted that is was strictly for protection, but then again, I didn't necessarily mind the envious looks and glances I got from the other trainers.

The next thing I realized was that Wako was strong. Not so much in the sense of attack power, but more so in the defense department. It turned out that yungoos like to attack trainers out of nowhere, so Wako being able to take some surprise hits was very useful.

But no matter how many hits Wako could take or how proud I was to own such a powerful pokemon, he'd always try to remind me that _he_ was the master, and I was his trainee. This proved especially difficult in trainer battles. Rarely would Wako obey be in a battle, and when he did, it seemed like he was going to use that move or tactic anyway. The trainers we won against didn't seem too enthralled to hand over money to a trainer that had no control over its pokemon. I didn't blame them.

And perhaps the worst habit that Wako possessed was his tendency to run off to anything that caught his attention.

Wako and I had been training for around two weeks. My dragon had just woken me up with a shaking of his scales, which was loud enough to shoo away any pikipek within a mile radius. I moaned and spat out some half-asleep gibberish to make Wako shut up.

"Mo!"

I let out a snort of air in amusement and turned to face him. "Did you just say no?"

"Jang!" He rustled his scales again.

"Geez, alright, I'm up, I'm up."

As I rolled up my newly-bought sleeping bag, Wako circled our camp, sniffing out every square inch of dirt around us. A growl - a loud one - rang through the air. Wako jumped and did a full 180 to face the hill beside us. And with one great "mo-o!", he sprinted off.

I let out a long-suffering sigh and turned my gaze up towards the top of the hill to find a small grey dot (which I assumed to be Wako) facing a smaller blue dot. I broke out into a brisk walk and followed my dragon up the hillside.

As I summitted the grassy peak, I found Wako rolling the small blue dot across the ground with his nose. He had knocked out a wild bagon. "You know how long I searched for one of those?" Wako sat down and looked up at me. "Way too long, that's for sure." He shook his scales in what I assumed to be pride. "And look at you! You found one in ten seconds!"

"Jang!"

I returned Wako to his pokeball and left the wild bagon where it was. I already had a dragon - no need for another one. I turned and to head down the hill, but a flapping noise caught my attention. A loud one. I craned my neck back, and froze in terror. A winged monster shot straight down and strafed the ground, donning the angriest look I had ever seen on a pokemon. Wako had upset mama bagon.

"Ok! No, no no! Back out! Wako! Back out!" I fumbled for the pokeball and released Wako, who came out ready to fight, but once my partner caught sight of the salamence, he make a noise that I had never heard him make before: a whimper.

Great, even my own dragon was scared.

The salamence landed on the hill with a final flap of its wings and a great gust of air. It opened its mouth, showing off its razor-sharp teeth and let out a pillar of flames across the hilltop, burning away all the grass in a matter of seconds. The heat drove me back a few steps, and Wako took off running down the hill. I couldn't follow. I was frozen in fear.

So this was how I was going to die. A trainer of two weeks killed by what he loved the most.

An unfamiliar, deeper voice shouted from behind me. "Geyser! Ice Punch!" A blue blur flew through the air and smashed its fist into the side of the salamence. The beast let out a ferocious cry in pain and looked down to face the pokemon before it. The salamence lunged forwards to strike its opponent with a bit, but the blue pokemon sidestepped the attack and retaliated with an Ice Beam. The blue pokemon, which I recognized as a poliwhirl, let out a shot of blue energy from point blank at the salamence's face, encasing it with ice. With its eyes frozen shut, the salamence stumbled around the hilltop and eventually flew away, its wings flapping in an unsteady rhythm.

I slowly turned my head behind and found a taller trainer, maybe seventeen or eighteen, with folded arms and a hurried look on his face.

"Th-Thanks." I stammered.

"Yeah, don't mention it, kid. The name's Julian."

"Kal. I, uh, owe you one."

Julian's eyebrows shot up. "Damn, no coaxing needed. Awesome." He reached forwards and grabbed me by my forearm. "You're coming with me. I need your help."

* * *

 **A/N: First of all, wow! I did** _ **not**_ **expect to get all the favorites and follows that I got after posting the first chapter! It really means a lot, y'all.**

 **Second, you may have noticed some negative reviews on this story that did not pertain to the story itself. I implore you to disregard them, as they do not hold any verity and were written by users who are angry at me for reasons that relate to some elements that make up my writing style. (I'm talking about the reviews posted by Dragon's Blaze and Fire4Heaven.) Constructive criticism is** _ **always**_ **welcome!**

 **I've decided that I'll be updating Scales every weekend (either Saturday or Sunday). If I'm particularly inspired to edit more than one chapter a week, the frequency might increase.**

 **Thanks again for all of your support!**


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